1999 Dodge Durango SLT review from North America

Brakes are unreliable. I've had the brakes slip in numerous situations, mostly in rainy weather (the worst time).

Transmission started failing at around 69,000 miles especially when it's cold.

Seat belts are hard to unlatch.

The folding rear seats are very hard to latch/unlatch.

Air conditioner doesn't work very well.

I traded my reliable Chevrolet truck in for the Durango I own now so I could have a family car that would hold all of the kids. For someone that would never own a mini-van I thought this would be a good alternative.

The first thing we noticed was that the air conditioner didn't work very well even after having it serviced.

The next big thing was the brakes. They slipped badly when the weather was damp outside. We replaced them, but the problem didn't go away.

The seat belts are hard to unlatch, a minor problem, but I wouldn't want to have to fight them if I needed to get out of the car quickly.

The rear folding bucket seats are also hard to latch/unlatch. Another minor problem, but an annoying one.

In the last few weeks I've noticed that the transmission would refuse to shift into third gear when it's cold. I took it in to see if we just needed to have the regular transmission service. I was told by the tech that this was being caused by a leaking seal inside the transmission. The cost to repair it was approx. $2000.00. Since then I've researched the Durango transmission problem on the internet and found that it is a very common problem. I wish I would have done some research before buying this lemon.

I'm not knocking Dodge completely. I do own a 1991 D250 3/4 ton truck with 120,000 miles on it and have had only minor repairs done on it, so I guess not all of their vehicles are bad. But I do think that the Durango has some major design flaws that Chrysler should look into before unleashing it onto the public.